Govt suspends aviation chief over alleged bribery
By Wole Shadare
A SENIOR official of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has been suspended by the Federal Government over allegations of bribery and corruption.
The official, on the level of director, was among other things accused of collecting huge sums of money as bribes to facilitate and unprofessionally license a domestic airline even when the outfit did not meet stipulated requirements.
A petition by a concerned group known as Aviation Stakeholders, made up of lawyers and aviation experts to the ministry, had accused the official of some unprofessional conduct. It accused the helmsman of cutting corners in the course of his job and issuing licences to some undeserving airlines.
The group backed up its claim with a post-dated cheque of N250,000 allegedly written in his name, and urged the Federal Government to investigate the issue, in order to help sanitise, not only the NCAA but also the entire aviation industry.
The agency has recently been accused on several occasions of ineptitude and corruption.
The Executive Airline Services (EAS) crash of May 4, 2002, where the company was indicted over poor maintenance of its aircraft, noted that the NCAA was believed to have failed to inspect airline fleet periodically.
The official has since being brought before the anti-graft committee set up by the Aviation Ministry to investigate the charges against him.
A ministry source at the weekend confirmed the suspension to The Guardian, but added that investigations were still on going, stressing that the ministry intended to get to the root of the matter. The Minister of Aviation , Mallam Isa Yuguda has vowed to tackle corruption in the parastatals.
A top official of NCAA revealed that management of the agency decided to suspend the director pending the outcome of the probe.
His words: "We met and decided he should step aside pending the determination of his case. Each ministry, agency and parastatal of government was asked to set up an anti corruption committee. Our company secretary is a member. If our audit indicts you, you are going there.".
The source further explained that after people petitioned against the official, the committee swung into action, especially as the minister and the Director-General of NCAA, Mr. Fidelis Onyeyiri had decided to give the panel a free hand to do its job, a measure that had brought sanity to the authority.
The director has been appearing before the probe panel since last month in Abuja.
